Methodology — how www.Malaga.today collects, checks, and ranks venues

What we cover

We cover hospitality and service venues in the 21 towns of the Málaga province on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain: restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels, real estate, wellness, things to do, and community events. Records that fall outside the province (Gibraltar, La Línea, San Roque) are excluded from public navigation and indexable counts.

Where the data comes from

The base layer is OpenStreetMap, a public geographic dataset contributed by volunteers. Venue owners add or correct photos, hours, and contact details through the Claim flow. Our editorial team fills gaps and adds notes. Records are ingested via a reproducible Scrapling-based pipeline, not a manual spreadsheet. Refresh cadence: weekly.

Ranking formula + worked example

The organic ranking on every hub is one formula: score = rating × log(reviews + 1). This rewards venues that have both a high rating AND a meaningful review volume — a 4.8 with 12 reviews sits below a 4.5 with 800 reviews. The formula is the same for /pizza, /tapas-bars, /hotels, and every other hub. Paid venues do not get a ranking boost; they are placed in a separate Destacado box above the organic list.

Worked example

Trattoria Giro: rating 4.7, reviews 1,830. Score = 4.7 × log(1,831) = 4.7 × 7.51 = 35.31. Pizzeria Italiana: rating 4.4, reviews 920. Score = 4.4 × log(921) = 4.4 × 6.83 = 30.04. The higher-rated but lower-volume venue (Trattoria Giro) wins. If a venue has rating 0 or reviews 0, its score is 0 and it does not appear in the top 10 (it is still indexed and visible in the full grid).

Tiebreaks: (1) data completeness (phone + hours + photo + website), (2) alphabetical name. We never boost a venue because it pays us, and we never demote one because it does not.

Category rules

Hubs group venues by cuisine and amenity, not by tags. A venue is in /pizza only if its OSM cuisine or distinctive name ('Pizz...') says pizza, OR an admin override puts it there. A venue is in /restaurants only if its OSM amenity is 'restaurant'. Tags such as 'rooftop', 'open-late', or 'live-music' are presentation metadata and never add a venue to a hub. The full rule is documented in docs/hub-membership.html.

How facts are checked

The 'Data updated' timestamp on a venue is set whenever an OSM record or an owner contribution is ingested. The 'Facts checked' date is set only when a human editor confirmed the phone number, opening hours, address, and photos in person or by calling/visiting the venue. An admin button labeled 'Facts checked today' writes this date against the current editor's name. A venue with a 'Facts checked' date is a human-verified record; a venue without one is OSM-data-only and clearly labeled as such in the venue card.

Where the star rating comes from

The star rating shown on a venue card is the Google Places rating, refreshed weekly. The review count is also from Google Places. We do not average ratings across sources (Google + TripAdvisor + OSM) — we use the Google figure because it is the most current and is what the public sees. If a venue is not on Google Places, the rating field shows no number and the review count is 0.

Dietary and halal rules

Dietary tags (vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher, gluten-free) are taken from OSM cuisine and amenity fields, plus a manual editorial pass for the top venues per town. The /halal hub lists only venues whose profile explicitly carries a halal-certified or halal-friendly designation. We do not infer halal status from cuisine type — Indian, Middle Eastern, and North African cuisine can be halal, vegetarian-only, or alcohol-served, and the tag reflects the venue's own answer on the Claim form, not a guess.

Paid independence

Editors are not paid per venue and are not told which venues to rank higher. Paid venues are shown in a clearly labeled Destacado (Featured) box and are excluded from the organic top 10 unless their formula score also places them there. The same ranking formula runs whether a venue pays or not. The pricing page lists what paid tiers include (AI optimization, structured data, photos) — none of these affect organic rank.

Browse lists show paid and claimed venues first, labeled. Ranked lists (top 10, Best X pages) are organic; paid plans never change rank.

Who does the checking

Editorial checks are done by Haitham Khalifa (Founder and CEO) and our verification staff. No third-party crowdsourcer writes a 'Facts checked' date. Staff access is logged in state/. 'Facts checked' = confirmed by a person, in person or by phone. Slower than automated checks, more trusted.

About the operator

www.Malaga.today is a directory of venues on the Costa del Sol, launched in 2026. It is operated by Haitham Khalifa, founder and CEO. The parent company is HostPioneers (founded 2012), a Scandinavian IT company that runs a portfolio of regional directories on shared infrastructure. The directory is free for users; revenue comes from optional paid plans for businesses.

How we use AI

AI is used in three places, all transparent: (1) a translation model assists editors when localizing venue descriptions and the methodology itself; (2) a categorization model helps classify ambiguous OSM records into the right hub (e.g. is this bar a tapas bar or a cocktail bar?); (3) an answer-generation model produces /best-* answer pages from the same dataset the organic lists use. AI output is reviewed by an editor before publication. AI does not write ranking scores and does not see payment status.

Disputes and corrections

Any venue with a 'Facts checked' date is a human-verified record and can be disputed by the venue owner via the Claim flow. Disputed fields are frozen pending review, and a new check date overrides the previous one. Public users can use the 'Report a correction' link at the bottom of every venue card. Questions: Hola@Malaga.today, or WhatsApp us for a faster reply.